Voting closes today for LJ Idol. My entries are here and also here. I hope you like them!

It's BCS Monday today. I'll be watching and rooting for the Ducks, and hoping the refereeing is solid. Go Ducks!

Last night, I ran 5 miles for the third time since just before Christmas! \o/ I felt really good about it, and then got home to discover that hitting "stop" on my watch did not actually work, so I have no idea how long that run took. These things matter, especially when you've increased milage!

This weekend, we watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and The Grey. The first movie was good–entertaining, lots of explosions, and the little piece of dramatic pathos that pulled me in like the sucker I am and made me love Steve Rogers to the moon and back. I'm not really a fan of comic-book-based movies, but that pathos was like the scenes in the cave in Iron Man. It elevated the whole story for me. I do like the Batman movies (both sets), but in general, comic book stuff leaves me cold. (I watched The Hulk for Ang Lee and Eric Bana, which started out well and then eventually fell apart, and it had better chances than most.)

The second movie had such nice, moody touches at the beginning that I was disappointed that it collapsed under its own formulaic storyline. My son was peeved at the ending, and I understand whey.

In other viewing news: now that we've seen virtually all of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes ever (thanks to syndication and Tivo), we've shifted over to Law & Order (classic). Such good stories. We're beyond the Michael Moriarty years at the moment, thank god, though that means we're missing Richard Brooks (so talented, and so wasted in that underwritten role) and Paul Sorvino. No Chris Noth/Jerry Orbach right now, which is too bad. Lots of Dennis Fontana, who I think was the weakest of the cops. I loved Jeremy Sisto and Anthony Anderson to a ridiculous degree. Their characters seemed similar enough that they might not work well together, and yet they did. Plus, S. Epatha Merkerson, all the time! \o/

And on the home front... damnit, there's still Christmas stuff that isn't put away, and I haven't reboxed all the gazillions of lights. It's the things that just fit if you pack them well that really slow me down.

The Midwestern teams are always just huge, and they tend to mow Oregon (and other West Coast teams) down.

I've held onto this digital watch for ages, partly because it's one of the few ever that has a cloth band instead of a plastic one (so it doesn't keep cracking). But if there was ever an illumination function on it, it's long gone. And we don't have streetlights in the neighborhood, so you just can't be sure...